Littlebourne Lock Part 3

"Yes. I've spilt the soup and broke the jug."

"Oh, Juliet, how could you?"

"The jug had got no handle; that's why I came to drop it. And the soup was only a teeny drop, so it's no great loss. And the bannisters was all broke away for lighting the fires, and that's how I came to fall over; and I might have broke my leg and been took to the hospital, and I should have had plenty of grub there."

The child said this in a surly tone, as if all that had happened had been an injury to her--even her escape from breaking her leg--and to no one else.

"Well, come up," said Mrs. Rowles, who would hardly have been so calm had the soup and the jug been her own; "come up and see what there is for dinner here."

"_I_ don't care," said Juliet, as she left the remains of the spoilt articles where they lay, and came up to the room. She was a strange-looking child, with brows knitted above her deep-set eyes, with a dark, pale skin, and dark untidy hair.

"Ah, you've been at it again!" cried Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l. "Well, it was my own fault to send you for it. You are the stupidest and awkwardest girl I ever come across."

"Then, why _did_ you send me?" retorted Juliet. "I didn't want to go, I'm sure."

"Hush, Juliet," interposed her father; "you must not speak so to your mother. Here is your aunt come from Littlebourne, and brought in the most splendid dinner."

"I don't want no dinner," said Juliet.

"Oh," said Mrs. Rowles very gently, "I thought you would help me dish it up."

"I'm that stupid and awkward," said the girl, "that I should spill it and spoil it for you. If they'd let me go to a place I might learn to do better."

"Who would take her?" Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l appealed to her sister; "and she ought to help her own people before wanting to go out among strangers."

"Yes, of course," replied Mrs. Rowles. "Everything is like charity, and begins at home."

By this time the unwonted prospect of a really hearty dinner began to soften the stern Juliet, and her brows unknitted themselves, showing that her eyes would be pretty if they wore a pleasant expression. It seemed to Mrs. Rowles that life had latterly been too hard and sad for this girl, just beginning to grow out of the easy ignorance of childhood which takes everything as it comes; and a little plan began to form itself in the good woman's mind for improving Juliet's disposition and habits.

Before the dinner was ready there was a loud noise of feet tramping upstairs. They were the feet of five more young Mitch.e.l.ls; and Amy's footsteps were very heavy, for she carried the baby. Albert, who was in the printing-office, did not come home to dinner.

Though the plates and knives and forks were all out of order, and though an old newspaper acted as tablecloth, yet the meal was thoroughly enjoyed; even Mitch.e.l.l ate some of the beans, with a boiled egg, and said that they put new life into him. Mrs. Rowles's own appet.i.te was satisfied with a slice of cake and the brightening faces around her.

Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l gave a contemptuous glance at the mantle hanging on a nail in the wall, and took the baby on her knee and danced him about; and the little fellow burst into a chuckling laugh, and Thomas echoed it with a fainter and feebler one.

At that precise moment there was a knock on the door. A voice said "May I come in?" and a little elderly lady put her head into the room.

CHAPTER III.

JULIET MITCh.e.l.l.

"It is Miss Sutton. Come in, miss," said Mary Mitch.e.l.l.

The lady who came in was, in Mrs. Rowles's eyes, exactly like a mouse.

Her eyes were bright, her nose was sharp, and her clothing was all of a soft grayish-brown. And she was as quick and brisk as one of those pretty little animals, at which silly people often think they are frightened.

"Nearly two o'clock, Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l. Now, if you can get the children off to school, I have something important to say to you, and only ten minutes to say it in. Bustle away, my dears," she said to the children.

After a little clamouring they all went off except Juliet and the baby.

"Don't you go, Juliet," said Mrs. Rowles; "I want to speak to you presently, before I go home."

"Then, Juliet," said her mother, "do you think you could carry baby safely downstairs, and sit on the door-step with him until Miss Sutton goes away?"

"I shall be sure to b.u.mp his head against the wall; I always do," was Juliet's sulky reply.

"Oh, you must try not to do so," put in Miss Sutton.

"And you might put his head on the side away from the wall," said Mrs.

Rowles cheerfully.

"I might," returned Juliet in a doubtful voice; "but that would be on the wrong arm."

"The wrong arm will be the right arm this time;" and Mrs. Rowles laid the baby on Juliet's bony right arm, and both children arrived safely on the door-step within three minutes.

"Now," said Miss Sutton, "who may this good woman be?"

"My brother's wife from Littlebourne, miss; and she brought us a real good dinner, and we are all truly thankful. Amen."

"You come to a poor part of London," said Miss Sutton; "and I am not going to say but that the poverty is deserved, part of it, at all events. There was Thomas Mitch.e.l.l, aged twenty-three, getting good wages as a journeyman printer. There was Mary Rowles, parlour-maid at the West-end, costing her mistress at the rate of fifty pounds a year, aged twenty-one. Because they could keep themselves comfortably they thought they could keep ten children on Thomas's wages. So they got married, and found they could not do it, not even when the ten was reduced to eight. Because a gentleman can keep himself comfortably on a hundred and fifty pounds a year, does he try to keep a wife and ten children on it?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Rowles, thinking that she ought to say something, and yet not knowing what to say.

"Oh, no, no," murmured Mary Mitch.e.l.l.

"Of course not," pursued Miss Sutton. "He says, 'What I have is only enough to keep myself, so I had better not marry.' Do you know why I have not married?"

"No, miss," replied Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, getting to work again on the mantle.

"Because the man I liked had not enough to keep a wife and family; he looked before he leaped. He never leaped at all; he never even proposed to me point-blank, but it came round to me through a friend.

But you working-people, you never look, and you always leap, and when you have got your ten children and nothing to feed them on, then you think that the gentlefolks who would not marry because they had not enough to keep families on, are to stint and starve themselves to keep _your_ families. Does that seem fair?"

Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l st.i.tched away; the others did not reply.

Miss Sutton went on: "If I had ten children, or even two children, I could not afford to give you what I do." Here she put down a half-crown on the table. "Now, listen to a plan I have in my head. You know, Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, what we West-end ladies have to pay for our mantles, even the plainest and simplest we can get; two guineas and a half, and upwards to any price you like to name. You also know what you receive for making them."

"Yes, miss, I do;" and Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l shook her head.

"How much is it?"

"I get ninepence; some of the women only get sevenpence halfpenny."

Mrs. Rowles could not believe her ears.